1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a security control system. Illustrative embodiments of the invention relate to a security system comprising video cameras, the control system and monitors for displaying images received by the cameras.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Security CCTV systems are now finding widespread use in monitoring shopping centres, town centres, and commercial and industrial buildings.
The size of these systems may vary from one or two video sources for small retail outlets, petrol stations etc., and the large town centre installations which may have greater than a hundred video sources with hundreds of alarm input signals.
In large installations, a great deal of security information is provided to the operator for evaluation. Such large security systems are typically managed by a system controller which can: provide access to a large number of video sources (for example a hundred video sources) and many hundreds of alarm signals; allow control of pan and tilt heads for each camera; have provide some control panels (e.g. ten or fewer control panels) for enabling an operator to interact with the system; and present video information on some (e.g. 30 or more) video monitors.
Managing this information to ensure that any incident may be efficiently and effectively identified, dealt with and recorded for evidential purposes can be very operator intensive.
To improve the efficiency of the monitoring process, large security sites are often partitioned or broken down into areas, with one operator assigned responsibility for monitoring each area.
System controllers may provide the facilities to effectively partition an installation into a number, (e.g. eight) of fully functioning sub-systems. Each sub-system has a control interface, a number of video monitors, and access to a sub-set of the video sources and alarm information from the complete installation.
The monitors are watched by operators who use the control panels, e.g. in response to alarms, to control the views presented by the cameras in order to determine the cause of an alarm. Even by assigning one operator to each partition of an installation, an event may trigger many alarms and present the operator with an overwhelming amount of alarm and video information.
Other actions such as controlling pan-and-tilt heads can be confusing for the operator when he views many images on many monitors; it may be difficult to pick out the view which is subject to the pan-and-tilt control.
According to the present invention, there is provided a security system comprising:
cameras for producing video signals representing images viewed thereby;
display means for displaying the images; and
control means for controlling the cameras, display means and implementing other system functions;
the control means controlling the display of the images to visually indicate, in association with an image, an active system function associated with that image.
In preferred embodiments of the invention, the visual indicator is a coloured border. The border may provide further emphasis by flashing. Different coloured borders may be used to indicate different function, e.g. a red border indicates an alarm condition.
The above, and other objects, features and advantages of this invention will apparent from the following detailed description of illustrative embodiments which is to be read in connection with the accompanying drawings.